01 May 2010

Carroll Gardens' Vermont Farmacy Gets Construction Intervention


The long-aborning new life of the once-mysterious Carroll Gardens business called the Vermont Market & Pharmacy may be rushing toward a suddenly fast-approaching finish line.

For a year or so, the new lease-holders of this one-time old school pharmacy—and more recent bizarre country market, and even more recently a shuttered, dusty mystery—have been trying to transform the space into an old-timey, Green, locavore, soda fountain. (It's hard to explain.) Progress has been glacial. But since Thursday, there's been all sorts of hectic activity surrounding the address. Trailers, food purveyors, cameras, etc.

A movie shoot, I thought. But no. The business has been selected as the subject of Discovery Channel's "Construction Intervention," one of those reality television shows where they turn around a falling-apart business or home in the space of a week. I saw workers taking out all the priceless cabinet work yesterday, and today they were filming staged interviews with planners and designers, and going to work on the facade.

I'd love to see this new business finally open. I hope this will be the upshot of this TV coup.

6 comments:

  1. I had the pleasure of spending time with Freeman to interview him for an OVERFLOW magazine feature on the Farmacy. He's got an idea crazy enough that it just might work, and I'm glad to see that he's getting some help. The story is online at http://www.overflowmagazine.com/spring10.htm in the Spring 2010 issue.

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  2. As someone directly involved with the project, Id like to reasure everyone that the show is going to great lengths to preserve the priceless cabinitry and character of the space. No priceless cabinates have been removed...

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  3. Carol Gardens5/03/2010 5:34 PM

    I went by today and someone on the crew said they are opening Tuesday night and people should stop by.

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  4. Thanks, Carol! I was thinking just the other day that I hadn't seen a comment from you in a while, and wondered where you had gotten to.

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  5. Ano... What? I said Anonymous5/04/2010 1:06 PM

    It looks good for the opening tonight, well... if weather permits!

    So far it looks great

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  6. I think you all need to head over to diehipster dot com and see what some real Brooklynites have to say about gentrified Brooklyn's latest "project."

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